• Turning Pirate NYE Mixtape @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    January 2, 2019 - By 

    Some of the press ahead of the annual Turning Pirate NYE Mixtape, returning for its 9th year, made the bold claim that it’s Ireland’s best New Year’s party. Common sense dictates that this sort of claim that should be met with scepticism, particularly on a date on the calendar synonymous with disappointing nights out. With house parties and the offerings of TV channels are more and more becoming the norm, everyone has a tale of horrific bar queues, taxi nightmares and booze-fuelled drama. The Mixtape, however, undeterred by the cynicism the night has fostered in so many, is a smorgasbord…

  • Kojaque w/ Luka Palm @ The Academy, Dublin

    December 7, 2018 - By 

    “What the fuck is up Dublin?” screams Luka Palm, as he takes to the stage of The Academy an hour later than expected. The young Dublin rapper carries himself with a boyish swagger, as he marches up and down the stage, with cartoonish intro music blaring in the background. There is certainly a buzz in the air as the show begins, but with that comes an air of uncertainty. Palm has been doing the round on the Irish and UK circuit with his SoftBoy label-mates over the last year, but has not released much music. The audience are unfamiliar with…

  • Florence and the Machine @ 3Arena, Dublin

    November 21, 2018 - By 

    It’s been nine years since Florence Welch and her varied band of musicians burst into the mainstream with their orchestral indie pop and grew to extreme levels of fame. Since then, the indie pop phenomenon has released four well received albums and has developed a reputation for emotional, bombastic live shows. As an artist with a fairly traditional album cycle approach in an era of constant Spotify releases and attempts at social media virality, Welch’s work veers in and out of the spotlight every couple of years so it’s easy to forget just how impactful Florence And The Machine’s back…

  • Parquet Courts @ The Academy, Dublin

    November 5, 2018 - By 

    In the giddy days leading up to Parquet Courts‘ sold-out Academy show, social media was strewn with desperate pleas aimed squarely at the #ticketfairy. It came as no big surprise. Riding high off the back of their sixth – and easily most accessible album to date – Wide Awake!, the Brooklyn indie rock heroes are, without question, at their all-time most happening right now. Take a well-earned bow, the marketing team at Rough Trade. Capped at a cosy 850, the heaving Dublin venue tonight buzzes like a glorified in-store, relocated to what could feasibly be some neony student union of the early 2000s (that the room is promptly transformed into…

  • Johnny Marr @ Ulster Hall, Belfast

    November 3, 2018 - By 

    “Sorry, I forget to say shit in between songs. Oh yeah, politics. Fucking great, right? Don’t worry. This is a safe politics-free zone for tonight. I’m allowed to take the piss, though…” 34 years on from gracing its hallowed walls with the Smiths, Johnny Marr is mid-way through a generation-blurring set at Belfast’s iconic Ulster Hall. He’s one day into his 55th year, and with his recently-released third solo album, Call The Comet, marking a new creative resurgence, he’s twice the character and poise of that 21-year-old back in 1984. Kickstarting a new European tour, tonight bridges three eras into one seamless celebratory whole…

  • Mac DeMarco @ Limelight 1, Belfast

    October 30, 2018 - By 

    Why does 28-year-old Mac DeMarco command so much reverence from so many younger fans, right across the world? It’s a question as old as time (or, well, circa 2013), and yet, a definitive answer is still outstanding. Sure, there’s the midpoint he strikes between authenticity and unconcern. There’s the albums and countless live shows that veer between inward-gazing, heart-stung, silly and fun as all fuck (and who, juvenile or flirting with the grave, can’t get behind that?) Then there’s the tattered baseball cap and rollies chic, which is every bit as dominant as a love of the harmonic twists and turns that…

  • Idles @ Button Factory, Dublin

    October 23, 2018 - By 

    The accepted trajectory of momentum in modern music can be an almighty fucker. But it’s no indelible law. There are, after all, those artists who somehow manage to ride the killer wave without buckling at the knees, being swiftly consigned to the industry seabed and bid adieu with a muffled chorus of, “See? Told you they weren’t all that.” In the case of the irrepressible Idles, it seems that no amount of five-star reviews or bandwidth-shagging kudos can derail their focus from what they already have: killer songs brimming with pit-starting transmissions of self-love and tolerance, and an ever-growing fanbase whose wide-eyed love of their music outshines the tut and tsk of even the…

  • Terry Riley & Gyan Riley @ The Sugar Club, Dublin

    October 3, 2018 - By 

    “We’ve heard the bar will be closed during this performance, so this might be a long 45 minutes. But we’ll suffer through it together.” Gyan Riley is sat across from his 85-year-old father, Terry, on-stage at Dublin’s The Sugar Club. Before them, watching on from tiered cinema seating and plush velvet banquettes, is a small sea of muted smiles that strong suggest that sufferance – or anything resembling it – is far from on the cards this evening. Hosted by the city’s perennial gatekeepers of good taste, Choice Cuts, it’s the first of a two-night residency from The Rileys and the…

  • Anna Calvi @ Empire Music Hall, Belfast

    October 3, 2018 - By 

    Anna Calvi is a musician who seems deeply invested in the art of the crescendo. Blessed with a gargantuan set of pipes, she can veer from a hushed mumble to clarion operatic tone in an instant, archly imbuing her music with shade and suspense and conjuring up bombastic, room shaking coups de grace that punctuate her grand musical statements. Tonight Calvi’s darkly theatrical persona will dominate The Empire’s striking Victorian music hall, an ideal setting for her apocalyptic brand of cabaret which promises to bombard the audience with head spinning guitar pyrotechnics, dramatic key changes and thrilling, shrieked finales. Stepping…